I’m a sucker for witty writing that is of the dripping-with-sarcasm-yet-only-one-inch-from-the-truth category.
This is a prime example. Although Seattle is finally getting it’s 3rd runway this November after decades of constipation, London Heathrow (perhaps the most important international aviation gateway on Earth) is just now getting it’s druthers and really getting deep into the expansion mode.
So my fellow airliner geeks at airliners.net (a.net) have risen to the occasion and have commented on possible timelines as such!
to wit, in part (fair use):
“June 2009 – Submit public tenders for various designs for its replacement.
July 2009 – All designs rejected by local residents.
August 2009 – A rare and previously thought to be extinct breed of dust mite is discovered in T2.
Late-August 2009 – A charity single entitled “Save the mites = Save our future (and our Children’s future)” is released by two ex-Pop Idol nobodies. It goes straight in at number one.
September 2009 – Local residents set up an action group called T.W.A.T.S – (Team Worried and Against Terminal Success) which pickets Parliament to demand that the area is left for animals to graze on, as anything other than this course of action represents what basically amounts to Planetary Homicide. They lodge their formal complaints to the planning commission, which rules that in light of the new complaints against the massive expansion of Heathrow airport and the obvious and irrefutable damage replacing the terminal building will do to London’s green belt, that all previous planning permissions and tenders are null and void. A new planning process is started.
October 2009